As my recertification deadline draws near (August 31st), I will be going through a bit of a cram session to prepare to recertify with my fourth Cisco Certified Network Associate exam. This time I am going for the cloud cert.
Here is a brief overview from the Cisco training site:
Many companies are embracing the Cloud to help them to be more agile, flexible, and effective at delivering better business outcomes. Today, the majority of companies are already using XaaS offerings, and by 2018, it's estimated that 78% of workloads will be processed through the cloud.
The CCNA Cloud certification is a job role focused certification and training program that helps Cloud engineers, Cloud Administrators, and Network Engineers to develop, advance, and validate their cloud skill set, and enables them to help their IT organization meet changing business demands from technology transitions.
With a CCNA Cloud certification, you will obtain the skills to perform entry-level provisioning and support of Cisco cloud solutions. Learn from the only company that has an end-to-end Cloud and Intercloud story.
I am approaching the point where I am considering switching back to the network engineer side from what I currently do on the system side so my skills remain relevant. Passing this test will buy me another 3 years for my certs to remain active which makes me more marketable in my industry.
Recently, I have been approached by technical recruiters for positions so I want to ensure I do not let my three previous CCNAs to go inactive (Security, Wireless and Routing & Switching). With that being said, I will likely not be very active on my projects until the end of this month where hopefully I will be quadruple certified as a Network Associate.
Cisco has a few tiers of certifications and those in the know may ask "Why don't I pursue my CCNP (Network Professional)?" and the answer is simple. When you reach a certain number of industry certs by different vendors with various requirements, it can become quite demanding in terms of time as well as money as these exams aren't cheap.
To offer some perspective, my CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional - examination fee was a whopping $600 and took me the good part of 5 hours to complete. It was grueling and I would not want to do it again so you better believe I am going to do everything in my power to meet my Continuing Professional Education credits (IIRC it is 120 hours per 3 year cycle) and Annual Membership Fee requirements. I have enough on my plate and having to recertify a professional level Cisco cert is not something I would like to tack on to it. Again, those tests are no joke.
While I prepare for this exam, I will be taking meticulous notes. I may even produce an study guide exclusively on the Steem blockchain. Who knows? It may even drive some traffic here as other CCNA's prepare. If anybody has taken and passed the exam, I would appreciate any comments about your experience.
I will be available if any issues arise with the 
